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Um... world peace? Not really sure what the goal of this thread is. I remember sampling a smattering of MMOs in the year or so before WoW's launch (e.g. Lineage 2 open beta, among others), and all everyone could talk about in the chats were "I'm only playing this until WoW comes out." or "Man, I can't wait til WoW. The game's gonna ROCK!"

And it did. The market was already hungry for it, and the market is what made it evolve into what it is. 10+ million subscriptions can't be wrong. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fanboy. I can see its flaws from a mile away, but I also had fun playing it. It scratched an itch that a vast majority of the MMO-playing public had.

"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous

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We'd likely have a lot more variety, that was one of the biggest downsides to the clone war years post WoW. I enjoyed that EQ played differently to UO, UO played differently than AC, AC played differently than Shadowbane, Shadowbane played differently than DAoC. Each game world felt truly like it's own place, each game had it's own identity, and I liked them all for various reasons and their personal charms. It's evident even in the games that never made it out of Beta that people were trying different things, as reflected in games like Mythica, Dragon Empires, Wish, Lejendary Adventures and more. Now people are so used to clones there's a guy arguing in another thread that ALL MMOs have the same shallow endgame hamsterwheel as Rift/WoW despite the plethora of models out there that don't resemble that endgame in the slightest.

I'd feel cheated if I'd been one of those that missed out on actual variety in games, but when all you know are clones, I guess it's hard to envision anything else. Luckily it looks like we'll start seeing more than just rehashes over the coming years (ArcheAge, Pathfinder, The Repopulation and possibly GW2, come to mind), especially as independent studios gain access to quality middleware that used to be financially out of reach.

Looking around the MMOs of a decade ago made me eager to see where creative teams would go from those humble beginnings. It would have broken my heart to learn that everything would grind to a halt as everyone scrambled to replicate the same game (with extremely limited success) over the course of 7-8 years. I'd far prefer we were hitting 2012 with 15 years of varied experiments to learn from rather than the limited teachings of how to (and how not to) clone WoW.

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Originally posted by Valkaern

We'd likely have a lot more variety, that was one of the biggest downsides to the clone war years post WoW. I enjoyed that EQ played differently to UO, UO played differently than AC, AC played differently than Shadowbane, Shadowbane played differently than DAoC. Each game world felt truly like it's own place, each game had it's own identity, and I liked them all for various reasons and their personal charms. It's evident even in the games that never made it out of Beta that people were trying different things, as reflected in games like Mythica, Dragon Empires, Wish, Lejendary Adventures and more. Now people are so used to clones there's a guy arguing in another thread that ALL MMOs have the same shallow endgame hamsterwheel as Rift/WoW despite the plethora of models out there that don't resemble that endgame in the slightest.

I'd feel cheated if I'd been one of those that missed out on actual variety in games, but when all you know are clones, I guess it's hard to envision anything else. Luckily it looks like we'll start seeing more than just rehashes over the coming years (ArcheAge, Pathfinder, The Repopulation and possibly GW2, come to mind), especially as independent studios gain access to quality middleware that used to be financially out of reach.

Looking around the MMOs of a decade ago made me eager to see where creative teams would go from those humble beginnings. It would have broken my heart to learn that everything would grind to a halt as everyone scrambled to replicate the same game (with extremely limited success) over the course of 7-8 years. I'd far prefer we were hitting 2012 with 15 years of varied experiments to learn from rather than the limited teachings of how to (and how not to) clone WoW.

Yea I have hopes for Pathfinder, and also World of Darkness since it is CCP doing it. I also think that the community of players would be better(more polite and less rabid about endgame) in all MMO's if WoW had never existed - just saying.

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Before WoW came out we had good programers that cared about what they were makeing not about how much cash they can make from the game they are creating.

SWToR would never of been made cause we would still be playing a much improved SWG

EQ2 would off been a game where you did real eq type quests not just do silly wow type quests

Stargate SG! would have to change there script in a lot of there series

Communication in mmos would be much better cause there would be no casual gamer who never gets to know anybody else

wow created a lot of money for a lot of differant companies in the last 8 years or so but now its gonna start to break companies and make room for the good non greed based mmo to make a comeback .

It is kinda funny because those early games created by those that weren't interested in how much cash they could make were owned and operated by EA (who owned Origin through the entire development cycle of UO) and SOE who created Verant with the sole purpose of developing Everquest. So the two most evil companies today were originally not interested in cash. Go figure.

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Of corse they had to have money to publish there game but the point i was getting at was designers that worked on EQ worked with a passion to make a good fun game not copy a game because it was makeing money.

here is part of a chat MMMORPG. had with the creater of EQ

Brad McQuaid:

We made the game we ourselves wanted to play. We wanted a challenging game where players could get a real sense of accomplishment, where risk vs. reward really meant something. The more difficult games we'd played, both online and offline, were the ones we both enjoyed and fondly remembered.

Was this the right approach from a commercial standpoint? Perhaps not. If I had a time machine I'd probably go back and do some of the things WoW later proved to be more mass market (though that would probably make me feel like a sell-out). In the end, though, EQ has grossed over a half a billion dollars. So while the game could have been easier, more polished, etc., it's not like we made something totally niche or esoteric. We were just lucky that the game we wanted to play was also a game that millions of others would enjoy as well.

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Originally posted by keenber

Of corse they had to have money to publish there game but the point i was getting at was designers that worked on EQ worked with a passion to make a good fun game not copy a game because it was makeing money.

here is part of a chat MMMORPG. had with the creater of EQ

Brad McQuaid:

We made the game we ourselves wanted to play. We wanted a challenging game where players could get a real sense of accomplishment, where risk vs. reward really meant something. The more difficult games we'd played, both online and offline, were the ones we both enjoyed and fondly remembered.

Was this the right approach from a commercial standpoint? Perhaps not. If I had a time machine I'd probably go back and do some of the things WoW later proved to be more mass market (though that would probably make me feel like a sell-out). In the end, though, EQ has grossed over a half a billion dollars. So while the game could have been easier, more polished, etc., it's not like we made something totally niche or esoteric. We were just lucky that the game we wanted to play was also a game that millions of others would enjoy as well.

Im not going to say the MMO genre needs to warp back in time, I am just glad that I got experience EQ when it was a new concept and the genre wasnt about mass marketing.I didnt want to like WoW when it was first released, but the fact is I did. I didnt like it as much as it progressed with expansions. However, the same can be said with EQ. Kunark was the last expansion I can say I didnt think dramatically stole the initial ambience of the game for me. I think any change to a game that you love that releases an expansion that dramatically changes the ambience of the initial game will do that for a player. The original world you first got lost in will never find an equal match.

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A world without Wow would be a bountiful paradise. There would no longer be disease, famine, pollution, or war.

Sadly though since Wow does exist, all those poor nerdy college students who should have gone on to stamp out disease, world hunger, invent clean energy, or end interglobal strife with diplomacy, all became hardcore raiders and flunked out of school.

Hey. it COULD be true. Guess we'll never know.

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A world without Wow would be a bountiful paradise. There would no longer be disease, famine, pollution, or war.

Sadly though since Wow does exist, all those poor nerdy college students who should have gone on to stamp out disease, world hunger, invent clean energy, or end interglobal strife with diplomacy, all became hardcore raiders and flunked out of school.

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Eventually an MMO behemoth would have come along and it would have been wildly successful with millions playing it, it just would have had a different name. And people would be whining about that game instead.

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A world without Wow would be a bountiful paradise. There would no longer be disease, famine, pollution, or war.

Sadly though since Wow does exist, all those poor nerdy college students who should have gone on to stamp out disease, world hunger, invent clean energy, or end interglobal strife with diplomacy, all became hardcore raiders and flunked out of school.

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A world without Wow would be a bountiful paradise. There would no longer be disease, famine, pollution, or war.

Sadly though since Wow does exist, all those poor nerdy college students who should have gone on to stamp out disease, world hunger, invent clean energy, or end interglobal strife with diplomacy, all became hardcore raiders and flunked out of school.

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Originally posted by Rusque

Eventually an MMO behemoth would have come along and it would have been wildly successful with millions playing it, it just would have had a different name. And people would be whining about that game instead.

That's not reflective of market trends. There is no shooter bohemoth. Modern Warfare 3 might be the biggest... but not by much. Halo and Battlefield are both close competitors. On top of that there are free shooters that also compete.

World of Warcraft is unique and has achieved a large market share that no one genre or industry has.